The most consequential challenges to ASEAN’s regional order do not always arrive dramatically in the shape of a crisis.
Some emerge gradually through new strategic arrangements that are initially treated as exceptional and then slowly become part of the normal security landscape.
AUKUS is one such case.
When Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the security partnership in 2021, ASEAN members immediately recognised and responded to its potential implications.
Indonesia expressed concern about an arms race and power projection in the region, while Malaysia warned that the arrangement could contribute to further nuclear proliferation.
Other members adopted more cautious or supportive positions, reflecting the divergent strategic calculations that have long existed in Southeast Asia.
Five years later, however, the question ASEAN should be asking is no longer simply whether AUKUS threatens regional stability.
It is whether ASEAN has done enough to ensure that the emergence of AUKUS does not gradually reshape the regional order on terms that weaken the norms ASEAN has spent decades constructing.
Whether or not ASEAN can continue to claim itself as the prominent architect of the region, despite AUKUS’s existence. This distinction is important.
AUKUS itself does not necessarily violate the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ). The treaty prohibits nuclear weapons, while AUKUS concerns nuclear-powered submarines.
Yet the agreement has introduced a strategic reality that ASEAN has not fully addressed: nuclear technology is becoming increasingly embedded in military competition in the Indo-Pacific.
That reality is unlikely to disappear. ASEAN’s limited engagement with it could have consequences far beyond the original AUKUS agreement.
For decades, ASEAN had sought to construct Southeast Asia as a security community based on consultation, consensus, restraint and peaceful coexistence.
The ASEAN Way emerged from a region deeply shaped by colonialism, ideological conflict, interstate tensions and great-power intervention.
ZOPFAN and SEANWFZ were expressions of the same aspiration: Southeast Asia should not become a battlefield for the strategic ambitions of larger powers.
AUKUS does not automatically invalidate that vision. But it tests whether ASEAN’s norms can remain meaningful as the strategic environment changes.
This is where ASEAN’s response becomes increasingly important.
ASEAN members have never been united in their assessment of AUKUS. Indonesia and Malaysia have expressed serious concerns about its implications for proliferation and an arms race.
Singapore and Vietnam, by contrast, have viewed stronger security cooperation among the United States and its partners more positively, particularly in the context of China’s growing strategic weight.
Such differences are not unusual. ASEAN was never created to eliminate differences among its members.
The problem is what happens when those differences are not followed by sustained collective engagement.
ASEAN has continued to reaffirm its commitment to SEANWFZ, but reaffirmation alone is insufficient when the strategic environment surrounding the norm is changing.
The organisation has yet to develop a sufficiently substantive regional conversation about how its nuclear-free principles should be understood in an era of nuclear-powered military technology, dual-use capabilities and intensifying great-power competition.
This creates a dangerous gap between ASEAN’s normative commitments and its strategic reality.
Norms do not maintain their influence simply because they remain written in treaties and diplomatic declarations. They require continuous political reinforcement.
When new strategic practices emerge, and regional institutions do not actively engage with them, what was once considered exceptional can gradually become normalised.
That is the longer-term concern surrounding AUKUS.
The issue is not that AUKUS will suddenly destroy SEANWFZ. Rather, ASEAN risks allowing the strategic environment to evolve faster than its own regional norms.
This matters because the Indo-Pacific of 2026 is not the Indo-Pacific of 2021.
Great-power competition has continued to intensify. Military modernisation has accelerated. Strategic partnerships have expanded.
Southeast Asian states are increasingly navigating a regional environment in which deterrence and military balancing play a larger role.
In such an environment, ASEAN cannot afford to remain primarily reactive.
If ASEAN waits until emerging security practices have become established before deciding how they relate to its regional norms, its ability to influence those practices will be significantly weaker.
This is also where the meaning of ASEAN centrality must be reconsidered.
Centrality cannot simply mean that ASEAN remains the convenor of regional meetings or the institutional hub through which major powers engage Southeast Asia.
If ASEAN wants to remain a regional architect, it must also shape the principles through which emerging security challenges are understood.
AUKUS therefore presents ASEAN with an opportunity, not to reject the partnership, but to engage with the strategic realities it represents.
ASEAN should revisit the political meaning of SEANWFZ in light of emerging nuclear technologies.
It should strengthen consultations among member states so that national differences do not become permanent regional divisions.
And it should engage Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom more directly on safeguards, transparency and the implications of nuclear-powered military capabilities for Southeast Asian security.
Most importantly, ASEAN needs to move from reacting to strategic developments toward anticipating them.
Because the future consequences of AUKUS will not be determined solely by the 2021 agreement, they will also be shaped by what regional actors do in the years that follow.
If ASEAN’s concerns remain confined to diplomatic statements while new strategic practices become increasingly normalised, today’s ambiguity could become tomorrow’s precedent.
And once a precedent becomes embedded in the regional security architecture, reversing it becomes far more difficult.
This is how normative erosion occurs, not necessarily through a single dramatic violation, but through gradual accommodation, ambiguity and inaction.
AUKUS, therefore, should not only be understood as a challenge to ASEAN’s security environment.
It should be understood as a test of ASEAN’s capacity to shape that environment.
ASEAN may not be able to stop great powers from competing.
But it can decide whether Southeast Asia’s regional order will simply adapt to that competition, or whether the region will continue to shape the rules by which that competition is conducted.
The choice may not be urgent today. But the longer ASEAN waits to make it, the fewer choices it may have tomorrow.
Fitra Shaumi Az Zahra is an international relations researcher and foreign policy analyst whose work focuses on Southeast Asian security, ASEAN regionalism, and strategic culture. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Universitas Airlangga and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Social and Political Sciences, specialising in Strategic Studies, at the Indonesian International Islamic University. Her work bridges academic research and public discourse, with her analysis and commentary published across Indonesian media.
References:
On AUKUS development:
Anwar, L.A. (2023) ‘Menjaga Keterbukaan Komunikasi tentang Kapal Selam AUKUS’, Kompas.id, 31 December. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
De Castro, R.C. (2021) ‘Philippines enhances ties with AUKUS’, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), 13 December. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
Dziedzic, S. (2022) ‘Indonesia criticises submarine loophole in nuclear non-proliferation treaty that underpins AUKUS deal’, ABC News, 29 July. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
House of Commons Defence Committee (2026) AUKUS: Eighth Report of Session 2024–26. London: House of Commons. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
Hurst, D. (2023) ‘Singapore backs AUKUS and says Australia could play “bigger role” in regional security’, The Guardian, 1 May. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
Li, M. (2022) ‘ASEAN’s responses to AUKUS: implications for strategic realignments in the Indo-Pacific’, China International Strategy Review, 4(2), pp. 268–287. DOI: 10.1007/s42533-022-00121-2.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia (n.d.) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia – Portal. (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
On SEA Security community & Norm development:
Acharya, A. (2001) Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order. London: Routledge.
Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) ‘International norm dynamics and political change’, International Organization, 52(4), pp. 887–917.
On ZOPFAN & SEANWFZ
ASEAN (n.d.) ‘Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ)’. ASEAN. Available at: (Accessed: 10 August 2026).
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